


Kiss Me (Like You Want To Be Loved)

by wickedgal08



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedgal08/pseuds/wickedgal08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the flashbacks in 2x19. Katherine and Elijah grow closer the night before the sacrifice is set to happen, and share a first kiss which has Elijah questioning everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Me (Like You Want To Be Loved)

She's a portrait of loneliness, this he's always noticed about her.

Braided hair, flowing dress, haunted eyes, Katerina Pierce is the embodiment of sheer beauty, and he's surely not the only one to have noticed. Men in Niklaus' keep have made no attempts to disguise their lust soaked gazes whenever she walks by on his arm, and it disgusts him. 

Where is their sense of propriety? 

Abandoned, most likely, in the shadow of a woman with laughter as enchanting as the morning bird songs. She's made no attempt to hide her amusement at how idiotic they become in her presence, bumbling like fools just to convey a fact which has already been well established. 

"You boys are all the same," she sighs, "You believe yourselves to be warriors, soldiers, yet remain ill equipped to survive the sight of a mere woman it seems." She suppresses another bout of laughter with her hand. "How do you defend your gender, my Lord?"

"My dear Katerina, I fear I cannot," he admits. "I have never been the slave to that basic of human emotion, so although I cannot defend the behaviour of my men, I also cannot condemn what I do not understand."

"You have never loved?" 

"Alas, no," he reveals, shamed by his confession. "I suspect love is rather different in the context of one who isn't family, but I have not had the opportunity to experience it. As such, how can I believe in something I've never seen with my own eyes?"

She nods, as if this acknowledgement confirms a plethora of facts about him she'd attempted to work out beforehand. 

"It's a full moon tomorrow," she remarks innocently, and her ignorance on what tomorrow really brings hits him hard, unexpectedly.

Elijah is far from a good man, this he knows, but his conscience still works just fine, and he knows full well if events set in motion happened to transpire as his brother intended, by tomorrow night, Katerina will be dead, and this conversation will cease to be of any importance.

He glances at her, at the crimson quality to her lips, at the way she peers through her eyelashes, her hands folded delicately across her lap, a half smile twisting her lips, as if she has some great secret yet to divulge, and feels his stomach knot together uncomfortably.

He knows what he must do - what he's already attempted to do on one other occasion, without much success.

He has to find a way to spare her life.

"You are very quiet this evening," she remarks, her sultry tones pleasant to the ear, more pleasant than the sweetest song ever composed. "Is something the matter?"

"It's a pleasant evening," he cuts across her, rising to his feet, extending his arm, "walk with me?"

Katerina smiles benignly, and accepts his arm with grace and poise. 

"The Lord Niklaus has requested my presence quite frequently over the past few nights," she says, making conversation. "He seems quite insistent I remain here, under your care."

Elijah feigns a smile.

"My brother is taken by you." Lies. "He is enchanted by your beauty. It's quite rare to see such a beauty such as yours around here."

"I highly doubt that," she counters playfully. "But I have no interest in your brother... not in that way anyway."

His interest in that comment spikes too high to be passed off as anything but sheer relief, and he scolds himself for being so weak. But she's a picture of innocence, a child on the precipice of blossoming into a stunning woman, and there's something to admire about the fact she's not just easy on the eyes, but also a challenge to the heart. Something about her remains guarded from the ways of the world, as if some terrible event has led her to question everything, and he is suddenly struck by this desire to know more about her. 

"What is it about my brother which doesn't appeal to you?" 

She hesitates.

"He is a hard man to know," she confesses. "He shares nothing with me."

She looks intensely vulnerable in that moment, exposed to another level of his brother's cruelty without even realising it, and Elijah feels an inexplicable surge of anger towards his brother, who runs on pure selfishness, willing to sacrifice anything and anyone for his own endgame.

He doesn't understand what propels him to make his next move; he just becomes aware it opens him up to a new emotion entirely.

Cupping her face gently, he leans forward, meeting her lips with his own, his fingers caressing her skin lightly, and she rests her hand against his, locking them both in this moment. He moves his lips only a fraction, just to give them both some leeway to steer it in whatever direction they please, but she seems intent on keeping them right there, and her lips taste quite sweet as he runs his tongue along them, withdrawing it immediately, intent on keeping this short and sweet.

They end up locked in that kiss for a minute, their eyes opening slowly, connecting immediately, pupils frozen in sudden realisation; as they pull away, their lips are the last thing to be pulled apart, and they hover there for the briefest of moments before they finally come to their senses and fall back, creating a measurable distance between them.

"I thought you said you do not believe in love, my lord," she murmurs, eyeing him curiously.

"I do not."

"Then why do you kiss like a man who does?" she whispers coyly, breezing past him, leaving him staring after her, bewildered and confused and miserable all at once. 

He's acutely aware she's right to question him, but he cannot for the life of him fathom out what this emotion inside him is which has him questioning everything.

He will spend the next few centuries chasing her for the answer to that question, although he will pretend for the sake of keeping himself alive and undaggered by his petty brother that he chases her on Klaus' orders. He will end up locking away this emotion until further notice, and become a cold, ruthless being over time, pretending his very dreams aren't centered around an innocent peasant girl running away from him, laughing loudly, always ending on that kiss. 

She will become the one who got away, although to others she will become known to by the guise Katherine Pierce, and when he learns of this name change he will wonder whether she made the change strictly to avoid Klaus' radar, or to throw away her sweet peasant girl identity altogether. 

In the end, he'll come to realise he'll never really know her. There will always be a part of her running from something: her past, an individual intent on using her for something, or herself. That's just who Katherine Pierce will always be. 

But he chooses to remember and believing in the continued existence of Katerina Petrova, because the alternative is believing she's gone forever, and it's a tragedy his foolish heart refuses to contemplate. 

And this all comes from the man who once told a wide eyed girl on the cusp of womanhood that he did not believe in love (and never would).

Oh how easily the heart can lie to itself.


End file.
